He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: The Opening

The gallery held ninety people, and I could hear every one of them.

I stood by the back wall in a green dress Maggie had picked, with my glasses on and my recorder in my hand.

Miles stood next to me. His fingers were laced through mine, and they were damp.

"They're going to hate it," he whispered.

"They're going to sit down," I said.

They sat.

The lights went down, and the speakers breathed in.

The first sound was the ferry's engine, a long low note that came up through the floor.

I had built the room to carry it. The sound rolled along the walls and crossed the rafters and came back to everyone at once.

I watched a man in the third row close his eyes.

The horn came: two notes, low then lower.

Behind me, I heard Pete blow his nose.

For nine minutes, the ferry was the whole world.

Then the water sound thinned out, and the speakers went almost silent, with just the faint hiss of a room.

A dishwasher chimed twice.

*Miles, kitchen, March.*

I felt every body in the room lean forward.

Then a young man's voice, flat and tired, said: *You're so annoying. Can't you just stay away from me.*

Miles's hand tightened on mine until my bones hurt.

I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on the dark.

Someone near the front let out a small distressed noise.

The voice came again, and a third time, and each time the room around it got clearer, until you could hear the tile and the hum of a fridge and the creak of a chair.

Then it stopped, and the speakers filled with the sound of the ferry again, low and ordinary.

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